Climate science back in the news

One thing that is sure to get lost in the months ahead is the science of climate change. Here’s a collection of recent stories about climate science and scientists.

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, Michael Mann (Columbia U Press, 2012) (reviewed in Science, 20 July 2012). The author is a co-developer of the “hockey stick,” the graph that shows a recent rapid rise in N. Hemisphere temperatures. If you’re looking for some comprehensive information on climate science, this book may be your best one-stop shopping opportunity.

A Climate Scientist Battles Time and Mortality (NY Times, 2 July 2012). Dr. Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University, has spent decades collecting and analyzing ice cores from all over the world. The greatest risks he faced on most of those expeditions were of the type familiar to any field scientist working a challenging environment, but just last October Dr. Thompson woke up in a Columbus hospital room to discover wires coming out of his chest.